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Arthur Murray has been a leading name in franchise dance since 1912, when the entrepreneur began selling mail-order dance lessons. Expanding his reach, he enlisted teachers to spread his signature dance lessons on first-class steamships and skyrocketed to fame in the '30s after introducing the public to such dances as the Lambeth Walk and The Big Apple. By the 1950s, Arthur and his wife, Kathryn, were hosting their own highly popular TV show on ABC, The Arthur Murray Dance Party, which ran for 12 years. Today, Arthur Murray's team prepares students for rug cutting at special events and weekend nightclub jaunts. Clients who arrive to lessons partnerless will be paired up with other classmates as the instructors assess their current skill level and make recommendations on the most appropriate program. Throughout lessons, instructors teach the foundations of two to four dances from a long list of styles that range from Latin to country-western, helping students to learn basic step patterns, timing, and the ability to lead or follow.

Whether they're leading three-year-olds in creative movement, or coaching teenage ballet stars, the instructors at Motion Dance Studio have two priorities: building skill and building confidence. They've been tutoring dance students for 24 years, and their curriculum encompasses styles such as jazz, tap, hip-hop, and musical theater. Throughout the year, their dancers aren't only mastering steps?they're also performing them at the studio's annual June recital, as well as during community and holiday shows.

The empowering instructors at Vertical Tease motivate women of all sizes and experience levels to shed their inhibitions—and possibly a few pounds—during conventional and modern dance fitness classes. Their flirty fitness classes draw upon the studio’s strength, encouraging women to release their inner sirens during pole-dance, Video Vixen, Chair Flirt, and belly-dance workouts. Combining fat burning with shimmying, instructors lead Zumba sessions set to heart-pumping Latin rhythms. Kickboxing classes combat extra inches, and the more challenging Turbokick unleashes a fury of kicks and punches to take down pesky calories. To celebrate special events such as bachelorette parties, birthday parties, or sci-fi conventions, the instructors head to your home to host one- to two-hour parties for training large groups in the seduction arts.

If the floorboards at Nan's School of Dance could talk, they would speak kindly of the tapping toes and pointed feet that have graced their surfaces for more than 30 years. In 1975, owner Nan Smith began teaching students in Yadkinville and later opened a dance studio in Greensboro in 1982. Twenty years later, Nan passed the torch and ancient family sweat towel to her oldest daughter, Jennifer Grinwis, who runs the studio with the same passion for teaching dance and instilling self-discipline, poise, and self-esteem.
Talented dance instructors lead students of all age levels in disciplines such as ballet, jazz, tap, and hip-hop. Patrons can also sign up to for a Kenpo karate class with resident martial-arts guru Mike Carr or get hips swinging and calories spontaneously combusting with Zumba classes infused with Latin dance moves.

Miriam Catron discovered a way to combine her love of music and athleticism—in 1997, she created Infuzion, a family-friendly center dedicated to art in all its aspects that furnishes interactive opportunities in music, theater, dance, and martial arts. Miriam selects enthusiastic and impeccably trained teachers to help students to thrive in their chosen field of study, whether they’re wielding a viola, executing a high kick, or performing a monologue on the secret lives of monologists. To round out the center's skill-instilling potential, a fitness studio hones able bodies with its arsenal of workout machines and spacious aerobics rooms that pulsate with a thunderous sound system to give soul shakers a reason to boogie outside one’s bedroom confines.

The consortium of professional instructors at Fred Astaire Dance Studio, which was cofounded by the legendary toe tapper himself, shepherds students of all ages and skill levels through lessons that span the style spectrum. Low-pressure private sessions allow enthusiastic teachers to fine-tune individual students' techniques and form, using their expert eyes and mechanical dancing shoes preprogrammed to do the Charleston. Patrons can learn how to cavort through classic waltz and fox-trot romps or swivel through the modern steps of salsa, swing, or samba. For dancers hoping to hoof it up in a social setting, the group practice parties provide a one-night extravaganza of instruction, demonstrations, and amateur firewalking.